[ BUSINESS BRIEFS ]

Staff writer, with Agencies

Large caps lead TAIEX rebound

The TAIEX rebounded 0.57 percent yesterday, backed by gains in large-cap stocks, but volume remained relatively thin, as investors continued to grapple with uncertainties weighing down the local bourse and Europe’s debt crisis.

The benchmark index ranged between a high of 7,220.10 and a low of 7,164.90 before closing up 41.04 points at 7,192.23 on turnover of NT$53.59 billion (US$1.81 billion).

A total of 1,816 stocks closed up, 1,886 finished down and 518 were unchanged.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs “will definitely provide HTC (宏達電) with appropriate assistance,” a top Cabinet official told reporters on the sidelines of a legislative hearing yesterday.

However, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) declined to give details on how and what the ministry would do, saying that since the HTC-Apple legal dispute was ongoing, the government would maintain a low profile, instead of touting what measures can and will be taken.

HTC said on May 16 that its One X and EVO 4G LTE smartphones were barred entry to the US by customs officials following an exclusion order filed by the US International Trade Commission.

HTC said on Sunday that some of its smartphones had passed inspections and had been released to its carrier customers.

Evergreen to launch new route

Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), the nation’s largest container shipping firm in terms of fleet scale, yesterday announced it would launch a new route between south India and the Persian Gulf on June 5.

Two 2,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) vessels will be deployed in the service, the company said in a statement.

The service will depart and arrive in the same city — India’s Cochin — followed by two stopovers in Sri Lanka’s Colombo and the United Arab Emirates’ Jebel Ali.